| Participating
Museums' Exhibition Themes
Art by Recent Immigrants will focus on how artists from different
cultures, who have recently emigrated and those who have lived
here for many years, adapt to the melting pot of American
culture and create art that embodies both their land of origin
and their new homeland. Issues of immigration such as the
pull between the cultural environment that is left behind
and/or the culture that is taken to the new homeland and the
construction of culture that America represents will be a
primary focus. Programming will include a panel discussion
with the artists and an artist-in-residence
program where an artist will conduct workshops and deliver
an informal presentation to the community. Curriculum development
in accordance with the state’s Core Curriculum Content
Standards, a read-a-thon in collaboration with a community
book store, and a museum reading room stocked with literary
and historical/sociological texts comprise the museum’s
educational initiatives.
Shades of Soul:Contemporary Art in New Jersey (5/15 –
9/30/04)
An exhibition featuring 15 to 20 artists of color whose work
represents, illustrates, and narrates the power that questions
of identity hold in the contemporary
life of diverse populations in New Jersey. Artists, who use
the personal narrative form in a variety of ways, some very
conceptually and others quite literally, will include Yolanda
Avila, Joan Eda Byrd, Steve Castillo, Wei Jane Chir, Alfonso
Corpus, Dahlia Elsayed, Alessandro Expositio, Christiane C.L.
Lee, Mayumi Sarai, and Raul Villareal. Education programs
will include oral histories, visual art projects and performances,
and an exhibition of works by students in the Museum’s
Community Gallery.
Artists of color will be commissioned to create benches
to be situated on museum grounds and Van Vleck Park.
Quilts and Cultures – (July 23 – September 5,
2004)
An exhibition of quilts focusing on the diverse cultures of
ESL students in Plainsboro, NJ. The quilts, created over a
period of more than fifteen years, stand as living oral histories
of the diverse student population and their experience of
the United States. ESL elementary school teacher, Gail Mitchell,
initiated these annual projects researching and documenting
mullticultural experiences as learning tools in the ESL curriculum.
Celestial Boundaries (Nov-Dec 2004)
Multicultural artists whose works focus on the use of celestial
symbols – sun, moon, and stars – and other celestial
elements in art. Cultural and intellectual debates involved
with researching celestial symbols in art will be addressed
in two roundtable discussions. Among the artists selected
to date: Carlos Ortiz, Jose Camacho, Alejandro Ompod, T-Chin,
and Ing Joo Lin.
Annual Juried Craft Exhibition
An exploration of the works of culturally diverse artists
including those trained in traditional crafts and those without
formal training in the folk arts.
20th Century Art Historical and Social Survey (Fall 2004)
of Diverse New Jersey Artists and their Communities
An art historical and social survey of multi-ethnic New Jersey
artists, drawn from both the collections of the New Jersey
State Museum and loans from collections supporting the theme
of the exhibition, that will explore the influence of Africa,
Asia and Latin America on a variety of artists, including
Caucasian artists who may have been influenced by these cultures.
In addition, the exhibition will examine how the works of
ethnically diverse artists are woven into American culture.
Expressions of Spirituality (tentative theme)
‘Til Every Art Be Thine’
Responses to Karl Free’s mural Under the Palms in situ,
Princeton Post Office. A multi-media exhibition including
interviews, photographs, videos and in-depth research exploring
the roots and reactions to the mural.
Immigration and Expectations (Jan-Feb or Fall 2004)
This exhibition will focus on the living history of the Newark
community through its immigrant population in specific wards
and districts and investigate the organic process of individuals
from other countries settling into established or not-so-established
neighborhoods and how their cultural background and aesthetic
changed the local environment. Artists include Pepon Ossorio,
Manuel Acevedo, Earth Celebration Peformers, Vivian McDuffe,
Mansa Mussa, Ricardo Gonzalez, Carlos Garaicoa, Helen Stummer
and architect Makrand Bhoot’s model house exhibition
of affordable housing in degrading neighborhoods.
The Legacy and Influence of Artist/Educators from of the Arts
New Jersey’s Multiple Ethnic & Racial Communities
1950-1980 - (May 1 – June 30, 2004-possibly thru 8/04)
An exhibition that will explore, document, and acknowledge
the role played by multicultural and multi-ethnic artist/teachers
in educating the next generations of artists and the impact
these pioneers had on cultural life in New Jersey. The exhibition
examines the body of work produced, the common and disparate
themes in their art, and the undocumented history of their
role in the education of subsequent generations of artists
in New Jersey. Artists include Emma Amos, Mel Edwards, Lloyd
McNeil, Rafael Ortiz, Billie Pritchard, Ka Kwong Hui, Vivian
Browne, Camille Billops, Ben Jones, Daniel Serra-Badue, Hiroshi
Murata, Wendell Brooks, Alfonso Corpus, Ming Fay, Gladys Grauer,
Toshiko Takaezu, Hughie Lee Smith, Rex Gorleigh and Kay
Walkingstick. Public programming will include a symposium.
Religious Architecture in New Jersey
A survey of religious architecture in the state, including
mosques, botanicas, churches, temples, etc. Meredith Bzdak’s
2003 Art History seminar on NJ architecture will include this
topic and students can research and document selected structures
for use in this exhibition.
Mainstream and the Margins (March 14 -July 31, 2004)
An historical exhibition tracing the achievements of ethnically
and racially well known artists who have worked in the mainstream
art movements of the twentieth century with sustained recognition
and popularity. The exhibition will consider the careers of
artists whose work can generally be described as examples
of broadly defined "mainstream” styles although
their cultural origins are African American, Latino/Hispanic
American, Asian American and Native American. For the most
part, these artists have chosen to produce work that does
not specifically refer to their ethnicity or national origins.
The art of approximately a dozen individuals will be displayed
to investigate the personal philosophies and aesthetic motives
behind the mainstream imagery presented. Examples include
the conceptual/process art of Rafael Ortiz, the formal abstraction
of Kay Walkingstick, and the magic realism of Hughie Lee-Smith.
Other artists considered for inclusion are Emma Amos, Ben
Fernandez, Ming Fay, Lynne Allen, William Grant, Juan Sanchez,
and Claudio Mir. Recognizing that artistic creativity is rarely
a phenomenon with clearly defined boundaries, the exhibition
will also present artists who usually maintain mainstream
styles, but occasionally produce work reflective of their
cultural origins, whether with traditional imagery or materials,
or more directly with social and political content. An example
is the “Lynch” series by
African American artist Mel Edwards, who otherwise produces
large-scale welded metal sculpture in the modernist abstract
manner.
MUSEUMS PARTICIPATING –
UNDECLARED THEMES
Aljira, A Center for Contemporary
Art; Bergen Museum of Art; City Without Walls;
College of St. Elizabeth; Morris Museum; Newark Public Library;
New Jersey Center for the Visual Arts; Ben Shahn Galleries,
William Paterson University
MUSEUMS/GALLERIES CONSIDERING PARTICIPATION
Brookdale Visual Arts Gallery;
Grounds for Sculpture;
Monmouth University Galleries
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